Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The following TV news report from Germany serves as a video follow-up to the five-part series about Neukölln mayor Heinz Buschkowsky and his new book (see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5). It discusses the evolution of a parallel sharia legal system in the Muslim ghettos of major German cities.

Many thanks to Hermes for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

00:00

In the meantime, a kind of parallel world has developed in the Muslim districts

00:06

of many big German cities, often also with parallel Islamic justice.

00:12

People trust a self-appointed “Peace Judge” more than the German police

00:18

and the German judiciary. In this way crimes ranging from violent acts to attempted murders

00:24

remain unpunished by the German law. Our reporter [name] has met the controversial peace

00:30

judge of Neukölln.

00:34

We want to interview this man, but we meet mistrust. We are filmed

00:40

while filming, an unusual situation. He is neither a dangerous criminal nor a mullah;

00:46

Hassan Alush sees himself as the law, renders judgment and keeps the peace

00:52

in a district of Berlin which has long ago turned into a parallel society. German justice

00:58

no longer has much to say in his territory. Because Hassan Alush is

01:03

the Arab peace judge of Neukölln-Berlin.

01:10

“One cannot live without law, but one needs an iron fist to maintain it.”

01:15

We are there as he mediates in a family dispute. Many migrants here

01:21

no longer trust German justice. So they have organized it for themselves.

01:27

We have founded our own city. Do you know what this means? We founded a city.

01:32

For example, our peace judges. If we have problems, we go to them.

01:36

Basically this is nothing more than the undermining of our constitutional state.

01:41

An Islamic parallel justice has developed in the middle of Berlin, and

01:45

this is his district. Heinz Buschkowsky has been warning of this for a long time.

01:49

What do you have to say about so many peace judges in Berlin?

01:53

I find it truly frightening. This is nothing more than the direct way to anarchy.

01:58

How many parallel societies is Germany coping with?

02:04

Berlin, Neukölln. Almost every second inhabitant has a so-called migration background.

02:09

The level of criminality is twice as high as in other similar districts.

02:14

A reason: the largely Muslim population have long since stopped trusting the German police.

02:20

We meet a youngster who tells us this in a rather blunt way.

02:23

(It’s a) feeling of hate towards all of them. All cops.

02:27

— You feel that? — Yeah, yeah. — Why?

02:30

So it is. Because they are always keeping an eye on me, and on immigrants.

02:34

Always keeping an eye. Even if you do nothing, in the street, they catch you,

02:38

they push you into a corner, pick out the handcuffs, in front of everybody.

02:41

— Seen this already? — Yes, many times. And for me this is not OK.

02:44

Do you respect the German police?

02:46

— No, absolutely not. Let them show respect towards me. — Why?

02:50

What? If they do not have respect towards me, then neither will I have any towards them.

02:55

— Do you respect the peace judges? — Yeah, yeah, absolutely. — Why?

03:00

Yeah, because… they make peace.

03:03

So youngsters like this respect the peace judges.

03:07

We try come into contact with one of them, but this is not so easy,

03:10

because peace judges are very busy in Berlin.

03:15

At 3 p.m. in the [name] Grill, you said? Everything OK.

03:19

Mistrust is part of his job, and the so-called peace judge

03:22

has already had bad experiences with reporters.

03:25

He comes with his daughter who is always with him, and documents

03:29

everything for fear of false reporting by part of the media.

03:33

How long have you been a peacemaker?

03:36

I started with this job in 1990, and from then on I’ve always been a peacemaker,

03:46

and I do everything I can in order to help people, because we live in Germany,

03:51

we want to live here in peace and security.

03:55

OK. The Germans tell you ,for example: we have German justice,

03:58

why do we need peacemakers here?

04:00

OK. For example, I am, if I receive a phone call, no matter at what hour,

04:06

my mobile is 24 hours on, when my mobile rings, and I hear that there are

04:12

problems somewhere, I run there immediately, and I talk with both parties

04:17

in order to calm them, OK? And I bring peace and calmness.

04:24

Hassan Alush considers himself to be a link between German justice

04:29

and his fellow Muslim countrymen, and offers his services for free.

04:33

But he settles the majority of conflicts in circumvention of local laws.

04:37

As for judging, the 58-year-old is tough with his clients. For him,

04:41

German laws are too feeble.

04:44

Far too weak. For example, in such criminal cases as drug trafficking,

04:49

murder or this or that, they get a punishment of 2, 3, 5 years.

04:53

Where do they serve their sentence? In an “open prison” in Spandau-Hakenfelde.

04:59

They must spend the night there, and by day they walk free. This is no prison.

05:03

And the criminals have nothing to worry about, and why?

05:07

His wife and his children get the money, the livelihood, everything

05:12

from the welfare office and the job center, and he says:

05:15

“I do not care, I serve sentence here, and I can continue with my drug business,

05:20

my wife and my children are safe, they get everything.” No, stop this!

05:24

We do not want him in Germany! He must be expelled! Away with him!

05:29

But in spite of, or just because of his attitude, almost every Arab in Berlin

05:35

respects him and has his phone number. This is why a quiet conversation (with him)

05:40

is hardly possible to maintain. He is continually called. A new case.

05:45

The Lebanese-born is not an elected peace judge, but he was born into this position.

05:51

The ancestors of Alush were also mediators in disputes.

05:55

They are highly respected in the Muslim community.

05:58

Among his tasks: mediation and

06:01

arbitration between clans before their disputes escalate, but…

06:05

There are of course situations where he does not help them,

06:08

when he turns off his mobile right away, as for example in cases of terrorism,

06:12

trading in weapons, etc…

06:15

The issues involving protection money are not too difficult for him.

06:18

Here in this slaughterhouse Suleiman al Mustafa works.

06:21

He has been for years extorted by his own countrymen, the protection money mafia.

06:25

As his livelihood was in danger, and he no longer knew what to do,

06:29

he turned to the peace judge.

06:35

What kind of problem did you have?

06:38

Extortion. Those people falsified some things using my name, papers and documents;

06:44

it was about money, here and there, all the time, more than 120,000 euros.

06:51

— So you were extorted for protection money. — Yes

06:54

— Is this normal here in Neukölln? — In Germany, not only in Neukölln. Everywhere.

07:00

Extortion of protection money, a crime punishable in Germany by up to 5 years

07:05

in prison, if punished at all. Many victims have no trust.

07:09

Why don’t you want to go to the police?

07:12

They (the mafia) threatened me and my family, that they would destroy us,

07:17

they would do this or that to us, and this is why one tries to solve this in a peaceful way,

07:24

with money and so on, but in a certain moment things failed.

07:28

— How long have they been extorting you? How long? — More than a year and a half.

07:32

He did not want to go straight to the police, but there was my plan, first I took him

07:36

to the lawyer and afterwards I talked with him once more in order to go to the police

07:41

with the lawyer. And things worked. And since then things have been calm for him.

07:45

How would you see it if someone forbids what he is doing?

07:50

One cannot forbid this, because he is not doing something wrong.

07:55

Just the opposite, he helps people. He is on the side of law, and not against it.

08:02

This father of 2 dared to go to the police only with the help of the peace judge,

08:08

and all parties were satisfied. He is not. Heinz Buschkowsky is the major of this district,

08:14

and doesn’t agree with this sort of problem-solving method. He has been

08:17

warning for a long time about parallel justice.

08:20

When I first talked about the peace judges five or six years ago,

08:26

people began teasing me: “Hey you, you Dumb August [low-class clown],

08:30

what do they look like? Where could we meet with them? And so on…

08:38

The mayor’s much-discussed book “Neukölln ist Überall” is found among the top

08:42

positions in the lists of bestsellers. In it he describes the problematic everyday life

08:46

in his district with a 41% immigrant population.

08:49

He sees the parallel justice as something already long ago established in Neukölln.

08:53

There is the famous example that here in Neukölln there was a shooting openly on a street,

09:00

the police scraped out 60 bullets from the building walls, and there were injured people,

09:07

and all involved in this issue stood in the court figuratively holding each other’s hands,

09:13

they stared at the judge and said: “Mr. Judge, there is nothing to discuss here,

09:18

we have already reached an agreement”. This is what we realize,

09:24

that those involved deal among themselves, whether a shooting, a robbery

09:31

or other different businesses It is often about influence, about a certain proportion

09:41

of immigrants in the organized crime, with free play, that power is handed over to them.

2
comments:

I have said it before, I shall say it again. If it 'their' city, then we should not provide them with the fruits of our labours: Water, Electricity, Social Services and cash. Let them have their cities, with borders and boundries and see how long they cope alone.